Flooding in Sri Lanka has now affected more than a million people, many of them minority Tamils whose community recently lost a decades-long separatist fight. Government rescue and relief efforts could either help the process of reconciliation, or deepen Tamil discontent with the war’s aftermath.

More than half of those affected by the flood live in the eastern district of Batticaloa, a region hit hard by both the war and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The 2004 tsunami presented the government in Colombo, then at war with the separatist Tamils, with a similar opportunity to repair relations. But the initial goodwill quickly broke down into squabbles over the spoils of foreign aid and unequal restrictions on beachfront redevelopment.

As this latest disaster unfolds, Colombo has won the war. But in the eyes of many Tamils and foreign governments, Colombo has yet to win the peace. The flooding disaster, if handled well, could help repair the decades of distrust.

“This has been a part of the world which has been hit so hard,” says Jennifer Hyndman, a professor at the Center for Refugee Studies at York University in Canada. “I think the government has a chance to impress the people affected by this disaster as well as much of the world and prove it is not dispossessing its Tamil people.”

Tamils suspicious of government intents

Since defeating the separatists in 2009, the government has undertaken few reconciliation measures, she says. Much of the focus has been rebuilding highways in an effort to foster economic reintegration and development.

Even that effort has been met with some suspicion, with rumors circulating that it’s designed to open up the tourist development potential of the east to the Sinhalese majority.

Meanwhile, government officials provoked ethnic divisions by pressuring Tamil-speaking students to sing the national anthem in the Sinhala language.

Floods displace 350,000

Now the floods have captured the attention of the nation, as well as international relief groups. The continued rains have prompted warnings from aid organizations that the situation will worsen. So far, 27 people have died and nearly 20,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed. The Ministry of Disaster Management provided updates on its website.

The Sri Lankan military has been dispatched to help with rescue and relief operations. The Army says it has rescued more than 450 civilians as of Thursday and prevented the breach of several lake levies. Troops are also distributing food and building temporary shelters for displaced people, which now number more than 350,000.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa told reporters Friday in Colombo the government is sparing no expense. “The relief operations are going ahead and I have told the officials to ensure that there are no delays in distributing aid.”

Rajapaksa spurred to talk about 'political solution'

According to Agence-France Presse, Mr. Rajapaksa also said he was ready “to share power at the center” with Tamils and was ready to improve on a partially implemented constitutional amendment to devolve more power to regions where many Tamils live.

“The fact that he is talking about a political solution based on constitutional reform and power sharing is good,” says Jehan Perera, the executive director of the National Peace Council, a nongovernmental organization in Colombo. “Since the end of the war, he stopped talking about it entirely because he came up with the theory that economic development by itself would suffice and end all ethnic grievances.”

But, he says, it remains to be seen what changes will actually materialize. Mr. Perera initially felt little optimism in Rajapaksa’s first response to the floods, which was a trip to visit some Sinhalese farmers in the north, ignoring the Tamil areas in the east.

The president’s announcement Friday may be prompted by a feeling of isolation from international groups as the flooding becomes a major disaster, Perera speculates. He adds the statements may also have to do with upcoming local elections and pressure over war crimes tribunals from Western governments.

Divisions between the government and the Tamil separatists in the wake of the tsunami contributed to the dismantling of a ceasefire agreement, says Professor Hyndman, a researcher whose forthcoming book, “Dual Disasters,” looks at how tsunami relief impacted conflicts in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

This time, there’s another chance for peace-building, she says. “My hope is they will go in and build some precarious ground for trust.”

Floods that have killed 27 people and displaced 360,000 people have submerged huge swaths of rice paddies and are hampering food distribution, officials said Friday.

Days of heavy rain have swamped the island's Eastern Province, affecting more than a million people and flooding more than 30% of the land in the rice-growing region, which supplies food for much of the country, the Agriculture Ministry said.

The government estimated damages from the floods at $500 million, and the Disaster Management Center said four more people were reported dead Friday, with twelve more are missing.

Many fields were ready for harvesting, and the traditional harvest festival of ethnic Tamils was scheduled for Saturday. Some villages are marooned, with little or no food aid coming in. In the eastern Batticaloa district, 300 families have been living on corn and yams, said Velayutham Thevanayagam, a village official.

Concerns about the spread of disease, including typhoid, are also growing as the floods cause sewage lines to overflow and contaminate wells. Health officials have also ordered pregnant women and young children hospitalized to shield them from waterborne diseases.

Health Ministry spokesman Dharma Wanninayake said teams of doctors and health inspectors have been sent to the affected areas and have set up clinics, but residents said some hospitals aren't prepared for an epidemic.

In Muttur hospital in eastern Trincomalee district only four doctors are available, while 10 times that number are needed, said Mohammed Jihad, a community leader.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Press Trust of India | The Times of India.............................................................................................................................................................................................

Sri Lanka's brand new venues are on track to host the World Cup matches despite floods in several parts of the country, president Mahinda Rajapakse said on Friday.

The Sooriyawewa International Stadium in the southern district of Hambantota, the home constituency of the President, has been affected by rains, but the grounds will be ready to host the games, the President said.

"We are on track with the venues," the President told Colombo-based foreign correspondents at a meeting at his Temple Trees residence.

"Unless there is something like a cyclone, we can go ahead with the matches," he said.

More than 300,000 people have been forced out of their homes by flooding in Sri Lanka, with no sign of a let-up in the torrential rain on the island nation's east coast.

Four more people were killed by mudslides on Friday, bringing the death toll to 27, officials said. The number of people reported missing stands at 12.

The government's Disaster Management Centre said more than 1 million people have been affected by the rains, with 363,000 made homeless.

Many villages remain cut off from supplies despite a huge relief effort involving tens of thousands of troops, transport helicopters and naval boats.

The United Nations and other aid agencies have also stepped in to provide food, sleeping mats, water tanks, purification tablets and hygiene kits. Across swathes of the east of the country, clean water supplies have been contaminated by the floodwaters and there are fears of an outbreak of disease.

"We are monitoring the situation very carefully," said Mr Mervyn Fletcher, a spokesman for the United Nations Children's Fund in Colombo.

Pregnant women and young children have already been taken to the hospital to protect them from waterborne diseases in districts in which floods have brought sewage into the streets, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health said.

Sri Lanka on Friday said nearly USD 1 billion of foreign investment will flow into a 500-room hotel and a shopping mall, the largest investments so far into its post-war tourism boom.

The island nation's cabinet has approved a USD 500 million shopping mall project by China National Aero Technology Import and Export Corporation (CATIC) in the heart of the capital, Colombo.

Shangri-La Hotels Lanka, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed hotel operator Shangri-La Asia Ltd, will also build a 500-room hotel along Colombo's sea front, on the site of the army headquarters and defence ministry.

Both will be moved and the land will be leased.

"The total foreign investment on these two projects will be around USD 1,000 million," the government said in its latest cabinet decisions, published on the official website www.news.lk.

"This will assist developing Colombo as a middle income commercial city and also to accommodate nearly 2.5 million tourists expected by 2016."

Sri Lanka's tourist arrivals and revenue hit a record high last year. Tourists brought in more than USD 500 million in the first 11 months as Sri Lanka post-war travel boom gathered speed.

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